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Daring Escapes from Concentrations Camps, Enemies, and Crashed Planes

Khalid Elhassan November 11, 2021 36 min

Mikhail Devyataev had to escape not only German pursuit, but also survive his own side's antiaircraft fire. History Net

A modern replica of Bruce Carr’s 51, ‘Flying Angel’. Lock-on Files

9. A Born Flyer

Bruce Carr began to fly in 1939 when he was just fifteen years old. In 1942, at age eighteen, he joined the USAAF’s Flying Cadet Training Program. He had the good fortune to get assigned to the same flight instructor who had taught him how to fly in 1939. Carr’s prior experience in the cockpit got him sent to Spence Airfield in Georgia, for an accelerated pilot training program in P-40 Warhawk fighters. After 240 hours in the air, he graduated as a flight officer in late August 1943, and was sent for more advanced instruction.

After he graduated from Spence Airfield, Carr spent an additional two months on qualification for the early models of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter, and its ground attack and dive-bombing variant, the A-36 Apache. He was sent to England in early 1944 and was assigned to the 380^th Fighter Squadron, 363^rd Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force. Until then, Carr had never flown above 10,000 feet. When he took his P-51 to 30,000 feet, he was so impressed by its handling that he named his airplane “Angel’s Playmate“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.